1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display image control for displaying plural image information items which are received by a computer on display screens managed by the computer, and more particularly to display image control in a case where the number of received image information items differs from the number of display screens managed by a computer.
2. Description of Related Art
An electronic conference system generally allows computers provided in conference rooms remote from each other to be connected to each other for transmitting and receiving real-time image information. The image information which is received is displayed on display screens, such as liquid crystal displays, which are managed by the computer in the conference rooms. In a case where a presenter performs presentation in a certain conference room, image information being displayed on the display screen in this conference room is sent to a computer located in another conference room and is displayed on the display screen of the computer. As such, a conference participant who is present in the conference room on the receiving side can confirm the contents of the presentation being performed in the remote conference room.
Further, if a presenter performs presentation while using plural display screens to display plural information items simultaneously, a conference participant in a remote conference room can confirm the contents of the presentation while viewing plural display screens in his/her own conference room. The use of multiple screens as described above enables a conference participant in a remote conference room to confirm a large amount of information simultaneously, so that he can easily understand the presentation.
Here, when the number of screens which are used in a conference room on the information transmitting side is the same as the number of screens which are used in a conference room on the information receiving side, no problems will arise, because the image information items on the displays screens on the transmitting side can be allocated directly to and displayed on the display screens on the receiving side.
However, when the number of screens which are used in a conference room on the information transmitting side differs from the number of screens which are used in a conference room on the information receiving side, and particularly when the number of screens which are used on the receiving side is less than that used on the transmitting side, it becomes impossible to simultaneously display on the display screens provided at the conference room on the receiving side all the image information items transmitted from the conference room on the transmitting side.
In order to overcome such a disadvantage, a viewer or audience in the conference room on the receiving side selects, among the image information items which are transmitted, a number of information items corresponding to the number of display screens in the conference room on the receiving side; i.e. the same number of information items as the number of display screens in the conference room on the receiving side. With this method, however, the viewer, having no criteria for selecting the image information item which the presenter would like the viewer to select, selects the image information item at his/her own discretion. Consequently, the image information item selected by the viewer is not necessarily the image information which the presenter would like the viewer to select.
In order to address the above problem, it may be the case that the presenter himself selects the image information item which the presenter would like the viewer to select. This method, however, raises the following problems. First, this method tends to confuse the presenter, because the presenter must select image information item while he or she is performing presentation. This problem becomes particularly serious when the presenter must select plural image information items. In addition, when plural conference rooms are provided on the receiving side, the presenter encounters difficulty in selecting the image information so as to satisfy the demands of the participants in all the conference rooms.